Responses of water use efficiency of Chinese fir to mixed planting and meteorological factors

Abstract

Chinese fir in China are generally inefficient plantations with single species, unreasonable stand density, and low productivity. The introduction of broadleaved species is usually adopted as a strategy to improve Chinese fir plantations. Taking the pure forests and mixed forests of the Guanshan Forest Farm in Jiangxi Province as example, we quantified the intrinsic water-use efficiency (iWUE) of trees based on the stable isotope carbon method, as well as its response to meteorological factors, and investigated the improvement of stand quality after introducing Phoebe zhennan into Chinese fir plantation. The results showed that the basal area increment was 0.23 cm2 in pure forest, being higher than that of 0.19 cm2 in mixed forest. The δ13C and iWUE of pure forest were -27.4‰ and 52.9%, respectively, being lower than those of -26.7‰ and 62.8% in the mixed forest. Tree δ13C in pure forest was more sensitive to changes in mean annual precipitation and mean annual relative humidity, while that in mixed forest was not significantly correlated with meteorological factors. Pure forest iWUE was positively correlated with mean annual temperature, mean annual atmospheric CO2 concentration, and mean annual maximum temperature, and negatively correlated with mean annual precipitation and mean annual relative humidity, while mixed forest iWUE was positively correlated with mean annual atmospheric CO2 concentration only. Our results indicated that pure forests was more sensitive to climate than mixed forests.